Understanding Cancer Series-Part6(The Beginning of Cancerous Growth)

Cancer develops when cells in a particular part of the body begin to grow out of control. Normal body cells grow, divide, and die in an orderly way. Cancer cells, however, continue to grow and divide without dying.
Instead, they outlive normal cells and continue to form new abnormal cancer cells. As most cancer cells continue to grow, they lump together and form an extra mass of tissue.As a malignant tumor grows, it damages nearby tissue. Some cancers, like leukemia, do not form tumors. Instead, these cancer cells involve the blood and blood-forming organs and circulate through other tissues, where they grow.

example:

During the development of skin cancer, the normal balance between cell division and cell loss is disrupted. The basal cells now divide faster than is needed to replenish the cells being shed from the surface of the skin. Each time one of these basal cells divides, the two newly formed cells will often retain the capacity to divide, thereby leading to an increase in the total number of dividing cells.